Working on some new videos

I’ve been working hard on a bunch of new videos to share soon. The editing is the part that takes the most time! I have a plan (half-baked) to get an assistant here to help me edit together these videos so that I might better be able to share more stuff with you… little behind-the-scenes… more screen-casting, and this sort of thing. I edit so many photos per week… I’d like to capture more of it to share. I’ll get on this…

Daily Photo – In The Sun

I was working on some photos from Argentina (one from yesterday you might have noticed, and this was in the batch. Most of my Argentina shots were of rugged landscapes… so I thought maybe you might something a little less rugged here… 🙂

In the Store

Some of you may have noticed that we dropped a few new camera straps into the store! I just got done shooting with them here in NZ for the past several weeks and I can vouch for them! One of them in particular (the higher-end one) is actually super-cool because you can have the strap over your shoulder and it slides OR attach to your tripod without needing it to be unattached! So, the sliding attachments are where the regular strap normally goes, which opens up the bottom for your tripod bracket.

Store Feedback

The store is almost out of beta, and it’s been interesting to watch how everything is working. It’s a totally new system. Our previous system kinda sucked — sorry about that. I felt like it used to be quite sloppy and the UI was a mess. The cart was confusing and so was checkout. But now everything feels quite smooth! And we are seeing lots of people put a lot of different things into the basket. For example, sometimes people buy a some Lightroom Presets AND the Photomatix Presets. Anyway, if you have any feedback, please let me know – I’m curious! 🙂

Daily Photo – The Cool Fresh Water

This is maybe some of the freshest water I’ve ever had! It was so icy cold, it was like a blast of frigid freshness into my mouth… I got in the habit of not filling up my water bottle until I visited this glacial lake… I was here for about three days… just relaxing, taking photos, and camping… it was very nice!

Podcast Update!

Our show this coming Monday night will have Daniel Suarez (author of Daemon), Leo Laporte, Gordon Laing, and maybe Kevin Kelly will join us too. We’re talking about “Wearable Cameras of the Distant Future.”

Option 3: There are other subscription options avail on the TWIT page at http://twit.tv/tvh

And thanks very much… every time you download, we go up in the rankings. Here’s a screenshot of the visual arts category — so thanks again!

Daily Photo – Old Car in Argentina

On one of the final nights in Argentina, I went out to an older area near the town which had recently been flooded. There were many abandoned cars, homes, and other lost things falling apart here and there. It made for a fun series of short hiked from one little abandoned thing to the next.

New Free App – Photo Voyages of Trey

Get it here! We released the free version of the Android app. It’s got all the same features as the paid one, just with 50-100 photos instead of hundreds and hundreds. Enjoy!

Daily Photo – The Deep Blue Morning at Cerro Torre

I’d love to return to this place, but I’m afraid the weather would not be as clear and perfect. Many locals told me there is a 90% chance that these mighty peaks would be covered with clouds, so I felt very lucky to have everything so perfect. Surely, a return here would not be nearly as good… but maybe… just maybe… a return would have clouds, but in an awesome dramatic way.

You probably also know I’m not a fan of plain blue skies. But way up in the mountains, sometimes the sky on the opposite side of the sun is a deep atmospheric blue. I see it from planes a lot when dawn breaks. Maybe you have seen that color of blue too… and here it is again.

Trey’s Variety Hour #20 – Google+ Photographer Discoveries!

#20 will be a fun one! We have great guests, all of whom will be sharing some great photographer discoveries we’ve made on Google+. There’s so many inspiring photographers on here, and we’re just getting started.

Daily Photo – Mountain and Meadow

While in Argentina, the mountain of Fitz Roy acted as the center of most of my hiking. It was always there in the distance, towering above all else. Even when it was enshrouded in clouds, I could still feel its heaviness beyond.

I think about 90% of my shots are landscape-orientation. I only end up with about 10% in this portrait-orientation. I don’t know why this is… I can’t figure out if I am just a creature of habit or if that is the way I am wired. But, if you ever do see one in portrait orientation like this, you can probably just assume that it required a little extra thought.

Digital Workflow and Stuff

This is a little presentation I did at the Apple store here in Austin.

Now, many of you have heard different flavors of this talk before. But, there is some new stuff in here (at 22:08) , particularly about workflow and how I keep track of my digital assets. I also have a more thorough Digital Workflow eBook that even comes with a video.

Want to see a full timecode / description? Visit this one on my YouTube page.

Daily Photo – Glacier in the Fog

Yesterday’s photo was of Glacier National Park, and today we have another glacier – but this one is from Argentina.

The glaciers in Glacier National Park are really quite boring. I’m sure that’s not a nice thing to say, but it’s true. The only ones I saw were quite far away and not very epic-looking. Maybe I was in the wrong place, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong! 🙂

SmugMug is using Amazon S3 to serve all these up... and I feel like I'm kind of eating too much at their all-you-can eat buffet of data!

175,000 Photo Views a Day

You guys are crazy! It’s been a while since I checked the SmugMug stats, so I was surprised to see the ever-steady increase in the daily photo views. When you combine this with the 22 million from Flickr, we are well past 60 million views. I guess the photos are good enough to keep people coming back – so thank you very much! I’m still very happy with SmugMug — if you are thinking of switching to put your portfolio and photos there, I still highly recommend it.

Daily Photo – Deep into the Patagonia Glacier

This is where my Russian friend first produced a bottle of cognac from his inside breast pocket. And it was not a small bottle.

Even more baffling, during at least ten other major photography moments, he would pull a brand new cognac bottle from a different pocket. He was like a clown with endless streams of hidden tardis-like pockets. On one of the final nights of the hike, in fact, we were running low on food and there was nothing to drink. Upon hearing this, he simply raised his eyebrows and pulled out three full bottles of cognac and set them upon a log.

This is the Perito Mereno Glacier, and this thing is over two miles wide. Unfortunately, everything is so huge in the photo that you can’t get a sense of the scale. When you see huge chunks cleave off, it all happens in slow motion, just like the movies. And the sound is like an icy thunder.

Join me on Twit.TV today!

4 PM Pacific Time today (Friday), join me live on video at live.twit.tv! I’ll be on with Lisa Bettany and Leo Laporte for a new photography show. If you can join live in the chat room, I’ll hand out a free gift for all of you in there!

@Photoshop Tweets from Adobe Speech

During my talk yesterday at Adobe, the team there sent out a bunch of tweets… quoting me during the talk. I grabbed a bunch of them to put here below for you, in advance of the video that I think they are workin’ on:

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “Art on the Internet is just getting started, its not a saturated market.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “You have to have saturated and not saturated parts of the image to give eyes a break and keep viewers on the image”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “We picture ourselves as stars of our own movie…and we like to capture it for ourselves in a more meaningful, rich way.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “Next time you go out to shoot, try wearing some ear phones..What happens is unexpected.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “If you can separate yourself from what is going on, everything can become dreamlike and you can see things in a new light.”

@Photoshop @TreyRatcliff “I challenge you to be awesome. We’re at an unprecented time in history to be awesome together rather than alone.”

Daily Photo – Russian in the Woods

Russians often just look cool. I don’t know how they do it. They don’t even have to try, but they just kind of have this “edge” that I can’t put my finger on.

I took this shot of Vulva (pronounce the “V” like Chekov did with nuclear wessuls) when we were walking in the woods in Patagonia. I had gotten up ahead of him about a quarter mile, and I stopped to take of my bag to get a snack. I like snacks when hiking. Snacks are so good. Anyway, I heard Vulva coming up behind me, so I spun around my camera to take this quick photo of him walking at me. I told him that I thought he looked really cool, but I think he thought I was just being a cheeky American.

Daily Photo – Natalia on the Farm

After getting back from one of those long hikes in Patagonia, I stayed with my Russian friends at a small hotel in El Chalten. It was a little family-run operation and the daughter Natalia helped out by running errands and these sorts of things. I took her around with me to take some photos in the little town, and she was happy to pose! It was plenty easy to find all kinds of interesting backgrounds, since El Chalten is a picturesque little town with old buildings, horses in fields, and mountainous backdrops.